This small farm teems with life, and though death is a part of why they are all here, the focus is on the needs of the moment. Ted doesn’t like to discuss too much about slaughter for a couple of reasons: He raises his animals to give them a good life, to connect with them, and to give people a source of healthy and sustainable food. The death is always hard- there is no easy way around it, and it is also the smallest part. As we walk up the steep slope, Ted mumbles something about people needing to eat less meat. There, in the animals’ space this is a clear conclusion. If we are going to eat animals, they should live like this- If they are going to be able to live like this, there will have to be a lot less of them (but, a lot more farmers!). Ted could have more animals but too large a scale compromises his relationship with them.

It is clear that Ted wrestles every day with the difficulty of his task of raising friends for others’ food. He seems to reconcile this with the fact (Ted and I share the view that this fact is not really arguable) that humans are omnivores and if he doesn’t raise animals for food in this way, more animals will be raised in ways deprive them of a good life, one in which they can live out their days using their full instinct and potential.

I didn’t have a chance to really get into a full conversation with Ted about these ideas on this visit, so I don’t want to go further and risk putting words in his mouth. But I know he has a lot more to say and I hope to visit again and share more. Ted is the farmer from whom I buy meat the most often (what little I buy) and I often see him weekly. He is a very thoughtful man and I appreciate how much love he gives to my meals.

It is an emotional thing, seeing the animals you will eat. So forgive me if this post is a little heavier. But I think its important to acknowledge that eating meat isn’t a simple act, nor should it ever really be easy. It isn’t the act of eating per se but the ease we have created that has really made meat consumption a problem. An easy thing in terms of production and an easy thing in terms of what little we experience, and how far we are from the creature living out a life. (That life demands some death is a fact that makes this idea of test-tube meat all the more disturbing and so reductionist, as if we could be nourished on something that didn’t eat, that didn’t live at all)

As with many dilemmas about food, I again come to the conclusion that it is really important to spend more money on food, especially on those products from animals. When weighing price options, consider what corners were cut to provide whatever you might be saving.  It isn’t an easy choice, but I think 1) it is important to be honest that for most of us, spending on food is about choices, and 2) that it is only fair for us to make some sacrifices in return. Ted’s meat is just about the most expensive I could get. Ground beef is $7/lb. So I can’t buy very much, and I think Ted agrees that’s probably for the best.

                          

Everything is totally right about this dinner. It is quick and made of all whole and active ingredients, organic and local. And the flavors are beyond. Beyond.

Pictured above is Taco Night deluxe with a fresh pupusa rather than a simple fresh tortilla. The process was inspired by a Rick Bayless recipe, which at first seemed overwhelmingly complicated, but he has a knack for doing this to what are really simple foods. (And he could use about four times as many paragraph breaks in his descriptions. Just a note. )

The trick to these, for me, is to keep them thick. I use parchment paper and a heavy pot as I don’t have a tortilla maker. It works fine.

I start with fresh masa dough from the farmer’s market. 1 pound of dough for $3. That is a lot of amazing toothy tortillas, it goes a long way. I mix in just a spoonful of lard into the dough.

(Yup, lard. My vegetarian mother cringes. Freshly rendered, also from the farmer’s market. Good whole fats also go a long way and the flavor is mild and it really helps them to get crisp. Read more about this maligned whole fat here. This can certainly be omitted though and they cook just fine. )

At this point you have a perfectly good simple tortilla you can flip off your hand into a hot dry skillet, but the taco night deluxe called for a little extra.

(I don’t have a picture of that middle step, but don’t try to peel the tortilla off at the stage pictured, slide one hand under the paper, flip the whole thing on your other hand and peel the paper off. Then you just flip your hand over above the hot skillet and let go.)

For pupusa, the black beans are spooned onto the pressed dough while it still rests on the parchment paper. Then using the paper to help it fold without sticking to your hand fold the sides into the middle and carefully pull off the paper. Then do the same to the top and bottom. You end up with a masa bean dumpling. With the paper still folded over gently press the dumpling into a thick disk.

This then goes into the pan. I decided to fry them just a bit with additional olive oil. Deluxe remember?

The great thing about this process is that one side cooks in the time it takes to make the next one, then the first is done by the time it is time to put in a new one. So it goes quick.

Toppings can very but the toothy tortilla and rich meat (lots of cumin and chili powder cooked into it) is matched with heaps and heaps of fresh raw slaw. Use any kind of cabbage and other herbs or veggies. Carrots, cilantro or parsley, green onion, lime, are all good. Dress with just salt and pepper, olive oil, and vinegar. We top with creme fraiche (just like sour cream) to get in something active and cultured to help digest the mess.

I thought I had a photo of another taco night with the chicken from making stock (see freezer pictures in post below) but apparently that was eaten too fast to capture. The tortillas on these were topped with this extraordinary sauce sikil p’ak (purchased from the same booth as the masa). Now that was also deluxe.

Taco night has been a weekly affair since the first of the year, all I can say is 2009 thus far has been very good in our kitchen.

                          

We had banked on having leftovers for many days after attending two Thanksgiving dinners (the strategy in visiting different families) and doggie bags from restaurant trips over the weekend when no one felt like cooking. We forgot to factor in how quickly those leftovers would disappear when we had days of people over around lunch time. So the only goods found ourselves with come Monday were two halves of two different turkey carcasses and some gravy that ran out of something to be put on.

Yet again my Alice Waters cookbook came through on a lovely soup, rich enough to fill you up on those first December days and too rich to make more than once a year. The reason for the richness is obvious when soup cools sort of becomes a solid turkey fat jello mold…but just heat it up, forget what you saw, and it’s back to a lovely filling broth. (For that gravy I just roasted some potatoes I needed to use and just ate those in a bowl of gravy waiting for the stock to cook…it was pretty medieval feeling)

Since the carcasses had been really picked over, I didn’t have any meat to fill up the broth with so I went with two of her variations of a Turkey and Kale soup. I added a bit (1/8lb) of pancetta and some cups of cooked brown rice. Even though we have beautiful chard in the garden I decided to buy a bunch of kale since I think it holds up better for a soup we have been eating for three days already (I’d say one or two more to go). I kept the pieces big so they would slurp up like wide noodles.

The turkey bits cooked in 3 quarts of water with some vegetables and herbs for the standard stock time of about two hours. I never really count this cooking time since it doesn’t have to be dealt with. Then I just fried up the pancetta and added carrots, onion, and celery and sauteed that for a while until it was all tender enough for soup. The broth is then strained into the veggie pot, add the kale and the cooked rice.

(This picture is well before these were done, they cooked up into a lovely browned tender mess)

A note: Alice calls to parboil the kale which I find unnecessary. She lives here in the East Bay so I wish she took it upon herself to be a bit more water conscious on some of these techniques. If something asks me to use extra water I usually just figure out another way. We’ve only have two good rains since April or something. Deciding to just add the kale straight to the soup made me wonder if there are any low-water-use cookbooks out there, and if not there should be.

So, this is a great way to use all that Thursday bird, even if all the meat is gone. I would note to make sure no stuffing is attached, I ended up composting one back piece that had too much bread in it.

                          

This is the tortilla soup from my oft used and recommended Alice Waters Cookbook “The Art of Simple Food.” We’ve been feeling the pull to be a bit more carnivorous the last few days- many vegan meals have come out of our kitchen recently for a number of reasons; meat and other animal products make meals more expensive and we just don’t buy cheap meat, we have been cutting back on dairy just for our general wellbeing, and its honestly felt rather unnecessary in terms of flavor, nourishment, and what we ask of animals/workers/land to go through for sources of protein. So we’ve really cut back more and more. But I’ve always appreciated having flexibility and variety as a part of my eating habits- so I made plans for something with chicken.

I had some pre-soaked black beans in the fridge so I decided to base my recipe search there. I’m trying to get into the habit of throwing a cup of beans in a bowl full of water as soon as I remember to, regardless of what I am thinking about cooking next. After 5 or 6 hours I drain and put the soaked beans in a Nancy’s yogurt container and keep it in the fridge until I come up with a use for them. That way the prospect of using my bulk dried beans doesn’t become such a time commitment right when I need to be getting a meal together and I’ve taken advantage of a dirt cheap protein source.

Far from dirt cheap, the chicken in this soup was the most expensive ingredient. Though the recipe only calls for one chicken breast,and this is precisely why soup is so cost effective. A whole organic free-range chicken breast (with bone and skin on) was a little over 6 bucks. Other uses of this might have required on breast per person, relying on the chicken as the center of the meal which would be way more than I would want to spend on one dinner. The soup lets you spread that 6 dollars over four or five meals. I think we had two dinners (that is dinner for two twice) and three lunches.

To the recipe we added bok choy from the garden and this was also a great way to use our giant and not so awesome (mealy) tomatoes.

best flavors: lime (not in recipe), chipotle chile, anahiem pepper

Last week’s soup (I am detecting a trend) was a testament to the thrifty potential of the combination of soup, a garden, and bulk dried beans. I can’t really come up with a per meal cost for this soup, it was so nominal. Only major cost was the chicken stock- $2.50 for one quart.

Squash and corn from the garden:

(sad garden note however, is that this is the only corn we got from garden- monocrops in the home garden are not easy)

So three cheers for soup, timely for our global economic collapse and just in time for fall! (At least for parts of the country who experiences cold in the fall, apparently this is when the East Bay finally gets summer)

                          

The answers to these questions usually lead me to either more whole or bulk foods, which tend to be cheaper (especially with the farmer’s markets) or to something that is more expensive than any of the other choices. This usually happens with dairy products, the best example being the price I pay for milk.

We have chosen to buy only raw milk, which is unpasteurized, from grass-fed cows. The grass-fed milk has Omega three fats and the raw is good for our guts. (see post below)We could decide that because of our budget we could buy twice as much regular organic milk for the price of the raw, and maybe four times as much of the conventional type. But first we prefer to vote with our (few) dollars- I simply can’t support the industry that produces the mass amounts of conventional milk- bad for the land, cows, and me- I don’t really need that much milk that isn’t contributing anything beneficial to me except some protein and added vitamin d (all available elsewhere). We simply buy a half gallon per week. I will also opt for less or none of something else to be able to buy this delicious milk.

This works out for a lot of the products which I choose to pay more for. I can still fit them into my budget by simply buying less. When deciding to put some ground grass-fed beef in some spaghetti sauce I can ask the butcher counter for 1/4 lbs. A whopping buck and a half and plenty of organic meaty sauce for two (Spaghetti sauce is one of the first things I decided I would never buy from a jar)

With nice cheeses I do the same. I ask the cheese counter to cut the cheese down to the price I’m willing to pay- and savor what I get.

This doesn’t mean I just buy smaller amounts more often as we only go to the store once a week. We also only buy one or two non-meal items a week (snacks etc)

If there is hesitation to buy less, and opt for the cheaper less sustainable products, think how much food goes to waste. Is all the food bought actually prepared and eaten? If not, you should buy less regardless of what you buy.

Also, there isn’t much debate on the fact that we eat too much in general. There are more than just personal cost savings in reducing the amount of food we consume.

Cutting down on food waste by using what all you buy and buying less to begin with will save the amount spent on the better food.

                          

For the most part the best food for you, whole foods (grains, beans, vegetables etc) are affordable. There is much discussion about this- clearly there are some highly processed, crappy food out there that is cheaper and easier, and maybe in the short term more satisfying than whole foods. But even just considering whole cost of health problems whole/healthier foods are cheaper. And I firmly believe, with the right knowledge on where to buy and how to cook, healthy with end up cheap.

Fresh, local vegetables direct from the farmer is the way to go. You are eating well and spending so little. But, I think it’s fair to say that most people don’t know how to cook vegetables in enough ways to keep them interesting and delicious. Also, there may be things in season that you have very little familiarity with. Or you may want to cook something in particular and find it not in season and not available. Also, if you are like me (or thankfully, were) and confounded or even turned off a bit by veggies or primarily veggie  based meals.

So these books have gotten me to a place where I understand the veggies I have on hand and can think of a variety of ways to prepare them.

A lot of the blogs and sites I’ve found on eating well on the cheap aren’t so helpful to me (which motivates me of course, because it’s my favorite topic). And even though I love the Get Rich Slowly blog, I think two posts he has up on this topic are almost irresponsible. This 16 ways to Eat Healthy While Keeping it Cheap really should be taken down, or just put somewhere else with the title “how to body build while on a college budget” or something. The first two tips (which could really just be one) is switch to water. Yes, good, of course. Some of the others like eating eggs, tuna in a can, and taking a multi vitamin are fine (you can get line caught tuna, but it isn’t something your should eat everyday). But these aren’t exactly the cornerstones of a cheap and health diet. Most notably because he eats frozen vegetables as a rule. I just really hope GRS takes this down because it’s simply isn’t good advice.

Some of the other posts there on food and eating are fine, but I think the concept is much simpler that these discussions admit. To cut and paste the quote of 2008 on food from Michael Pollan’s newest book:

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

So what about this?:

• start with fresh local veggies: get a range from leafy greens to solid squashes. Have a list of what you will always have on hand like onions, garlic, and green- then go with what looks good and inspires you.
• then stock up on a variety of beans and other legumes (like lentils)
• Also have a good stock of a variety of grains from the instant pastas to the more lengthy rices then to flours that you can use to make breads, crusts, tortillas etc from scratch.
• Then fit in more complex protein sources. I eat a good variety of fish. I will buy a whole chicken to make stock to keep on hand and then have the stewed meat for a few other meals. Only grass-fed beef and only this and other meats occasionally.
• Avoid buying items that are “one use”. Make sure any packaged (including bulk) goods are able to be stretched over many meals. Figuring what packaged items you can manage to do homemade is a great adventure, from cookies to yogurt, bread to sauerkraut.
• Indulge in treats like a nice cheese, wine, desserts etc. Just keep them special by limiting. Start shopping by meal then fill in.

Bulk is beautiful!